The Little Things
by PurpleYin
Summary: Assorted ficlets done to the 10 song shuffle meme, focusing on Olivia and Lincoln mostly, gen and het.
1. Chapter 1: He's Not Gone

Assorted ficlets done to the 10 song shuffle meme, focusing on Olivia and Lincoln mostly, gen and het.

**Spoilers: **To 5x12

**Characters/Pairings:** Olivia, William Bell, alt!Olivia/Lincoln, Olivia/alt!Lincoln, alt!Olivia, altLincoln, Olivia/Lincoln, Nick Lane, Lincoln.

**Warnings:** character death

**A/N: **Thanks to giallarhorn for betareading.

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**1. He's Not Gone – post S4 Olivia - "Ring The Bells" by James **

A bell rings and Olivia thinks, _no, this shouldn't be happening_.

She feels lies form on her lips, and stutters into a raspy cough to cover the difference of a voice settling into a lower octave. She's just watching, spying details about her body that are wrong, a picture growing hazier as she's pushed out unwillingly by another. There's a moment of hesitation, but he knows it's either her or him who has to vacate the body.

Then there's a dream of her life outlined in stark black lines. There's a man with an X across his chest that still haunts her after all this time.

"Be strong, Olive."

He raises the gun to shoot; she finds it's her finger on the trigger and her aim true.

"I always was," she says and doesn't give killing William Bell a second of doubt.

She hits the mark and lurches upright on a gurney with a gasp, lungs moving under her own volition again and pushing out a tight laugh because he should've known better. Unless better was for her, not him - another test in a game that neither of them could win entirely.


	2. Chapter 2: Out Of Sync

**2. Out of Sync – post S4 Liv, redverse team dynamics - "These Rituals of Mine" by A Choir of New Believers**

There are protocols to follow.

Liv isn't good at following though, unless it's a lead. It used to drive him nuts when she acted without regard, prompting lectures about how she should at least try to act like his subordinate. Sometimes she gave him hell to see if she could get away with it. Testing the boundaries and all. Linc would grin and give back as good as he got.

Now Lincoln is following her, letting her take the lead and it throws her off. He's still a stickler for rules; they're fresh in his head from retraining. Every time he gently reminds her of one she claims a mix of ignorance, irrelevance and simply knowing better because it's her world, her job, her team. Nothing about it feels right and it makes her feel like she isn't herself, despite the fact he's the one out of place. She's managed with that before though, molding herself into another Olivia Dunham because she had to. She'll manage again.


	3. Chapter 3: An Almost Revenge

**3. An Almost Revenge – S3 AU, Olivia/alt!Lincoln - "Hurt" by Johnny Cash**

She kisses him because he's there. Because she remembers he wanted to kiss her and she hopes he still does (in the back of her mind she knows, like Liv knows, and is satisfied nothing has changed there).

Olivia threads her fingers in the hair at the back of his neck, forceful, and doesn't let him pull away. The Liv she's meant to be isn't for him and she can't let him question why she, Olivia, chose this. Another anomaly of how things aren't meant to be, how she isn't Liv. Instead she answers his doubts with her body pressed against his, presenting her desire as undeniable and giving into it with lips and tongue clashing.

It isn't fair on any of them, really. The vision of Peter watches out of the corner of her eye, his expression grim. Lincoln's eyes drift close, living in the moment with touch and taste only. Maybe Lincoln doesn't think it's real either, knows it won't last. The idea is a small mercy for the pain she knows she's causing – he expects it to be a capricious whim of _hers_.

Olivia wants to prove herself, to choose something Liv wouldn't but this kiss Olivia wants, if she truly wants it, would be slower, sweeter, shyer. Somehow, she can't stop Liv bleeding through entirely- she's still at odds with herself and the movements feel re-enacted from an old fantasy or dream that Olivia has never had. Even being aware the memories she has are borrowed and aren't hers, they're still too much alike, which is why it hurts. She's here with Lincoln, seeing him anew and not discarded, and Liv's over there. She can only wonder if Liv's with Peter doing what she would've done?

Olivia closes her eyes and gives in to the false giddiness of adrenaline mixing with endorphins and taking what she can from a life that isn't hers. She tells herself she isn't enjoying any of it, that this is survival and nothing to do with spite, but she's angry with Peter for not coming to get her, for not knowing she's missing. He's only in her head, like the imprint of that other women and Lincoln is real in front of her, under her, warm and accepting.

It's almost too easy a victory; Liv would hate it but Olivia finds it satisfying and comfort in that satisfaction (it isn't hers, but she takes it anyway).


	4. Chapter 4: Beware Gifts

**4. Beware Gifts – altered timeline S3 alt!Olivia - "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha **

She can't drink like their Olivia can and it was a mistake to try, even if building up her tolerance might help her cover. Now she's sitting in the lab with a pounding headache, no adequate medicine in this universe to deal with it, and Walter's playing a single Violet Sedan Chair album on repeat.

"I'm going out."

She has to hide her grimace when the track reaches its peak, making a tight smile which Astrid mistakes as losing patience. No explanation is necessary, she realises, no authorisation required. This is normal, people seeking to escape the lunacy of the lab and Walter's rantings.

Sometimes she finds it endearing to see this version of the Secretary throwing his thoughts out into the ether with such verve, and she might appreciate it later when she strolls back in armed with pastries.

Sometimes she likes it here and not just because it's safer than home – if she ignores the ever present threat of discovery – but for how it feels like it could be another kind of home, a setup edging on familiarity that says that she's been here before.


	5. Chapter 5: Breaking The Habit

**5. Breaking The Habit - S4 Olivia/Lincoln & Lincoln/Alt!Olivia - "Sugar" by Garbage**

There are moments between them that he fills with meanings they don't share anymore – awkward pauses that aren't the shy seconds they used to have. He looks at her and sees who she isn't staring back at him, in how her expression shows she knows she's missing something. Her memories have slipped away and he's let them because it's what she wanted, but he can't rewrite who he is, and his feelings, like she did.

When he sees the other her, it's easier to remember from the red hair that they're not the same. Liv is warm and exudes energy, a will to be. He can't imagine her making the same choice as Olivia and she hasn't lost the mystery of getting to know him. He hadn't been sure she wouldn't just see a less spectacular version of her partner, but she does treat him as his own person.

The woman he felt something for doesn't exist anymore but this version of Olivia Dunham looks at him directly, speaks to him directly and sees him in the way he thought he'd lost when Olivia had become closed off. They're not the same woman and as he feels himself blush under her gaze at a quip about not bringing any coffee over, Lincoln's pretty sure that's a good thing.


	6. Chapter 6: What Can I Say, The Job Pays

**6. What Can I Say, The Job Pays – alt!Lincoln - "This is It" by Simple Minds **

The wind swirls overhead, objects clanging against each other in a tighter spiral towards the epicenter. He ducks down a split-second before a street sign is flung at his head and revels in the burn of his lungs as he runs _toward _the event.

Civilians are screaming and fleeing like their lives depend on it. It does, but it also depends on him and his team. He's heard it described as certain death, a job with an expiration date come too soon, but if that's true he's cheating death on a daily basis and he's never felt better for it.

He slides down low now, as close to the disturbance as he dares and presses a kiss to the metal of a dollar coin – his good luck charm - before depositing the canister over it. Then comes the stabilising unit to top it off, securing it to the ground in the midst of the gale.

This is it. 60 seconds to get clear, possibly less if the vortex grows faster than predicted but he trusts Farnsworth's calculations. He sprints out of the zone, clearing it with 6 seconds to go.

"You owe me twenty bucks Charlie," he wheezes as the amber disperses, "Didn't even have to skimp on paying my graces to Nixon this time."

"Don't brag. 1 second more and that'd be my twenty bucks you'd be handing over."

He stares at the amber that rapidly grows within arm's reach and knows how close he came to being immortalised inside it. These days he only really feels alive with that knowledge. It makes surviving all the sweeter.


	7. Chapter 7: A Quiet Faith

**7. A Quiet Faith - post S4 alt!Olivia/Lincoln - "Here Comes The Sun" by The Beatles**

Liv keeps looking up after the rain.

She had planned to regardless of the parting advice from her double. She always hoped against the odds that she'd be proved wrong, one of the few things she'd prefer to lose on. She looks up, again and again, and it's the same. The sun shines a little brighter, in clearer skies after the storms calm but she never sees a rainbow.

Sometimes she thinks Lincoln misses them, a far away look on his face when he comes to meet her at the window. Is it worse for him, a reminder of what he gave up? Stability and certainty, for a universe lacking in either. Eventually, when she can't stand second guessing his feelings in this life, with her, she asks him.

He doesn't say anything for a moment. "I miss a lot of things, but that doesn't mean I want to go back there."

He doesn't call it home. Not anymore. She grins in appreciation and hugs him tight.

"As nice as this is, I hate to distract you from what you were really looking for." He says, indicating towards the view. Sure enough, behind her is a weak band of colour in the sky, barely visible.

"Now my life is finally complete. I can die happy," she says, meaning it as a joke. She's been happy for years with him and she realises the feeling's mutual, something she'd been afraid to see before, expecting it to be temporary.

When their son is born, she wishes fervently that he'll get to see a rainbow for himself someday, bright and colourful, not as a fantasy or a mere drawing from a picture book. It's hope in their broken world and she thinks she finally knows now why Lincoln chose to come here.

At first she'd imagined he'd put aside thoughts of everything that he would miss and yet worried that he couldn't. She was right - of course he couldn't let go of what he'd had before but knowing what they were missing made him want to fight harder for it, to return to them what they should have had.


	8. Chapter 8: Stand (And Fall) Alone

**8. Stand (And Fall) Alone – S4 Nick, mild Nick/Olivia - "Out From the Deep" by Enigma **

He prepares himself every day. Pushes his body to its limit, tests the range of his ability, hones it until he can pinpoint minds and use it how he likes. He takes control of his life and it feels good. It feels like he was born to this, growing up to fulfil his destiny.

At night, he dreams loosely and lets himself go from the rigidity of his daily life. He knows that he was meant for war but in his sleep he sees other possibilities. He sleeps in his dreams too, wakes from the deepest dream ever then and finds peace with hands clasped in his, a circle of them working together; only to wake up once more, the second coming home to his hyper-alert adrenaline pumped body, edging for a battle.

He blends in, alone in a crowd in the day. Blacks and greys. One among many, a cohesive plan to free their world that he can't let fail.

And in the night he slots into a position in a puzzle, beams with an easy smile he doesn't allow himself these days. He dreams of crossing over to another place, with fear and love in his heart, darkness and light blending in front of his eyes. His dreams do not end well, yet he wakes to another nightmare with a different fear. He has but one purpose and what will he be when the war is over?

They're so close to the end now and he's grateful. He can only be strong for so long, bending himself to a will he doesn't possess naturally, borrowing his time on another's resolve. If he reaches out he can feel Olive, the reassuring smooth veneer of her steely mind that he tries to emulate, but he doesn't call to her.


	9. Chapter 9: What Was Written

**9. What Was Written - S4 AU, Olivia/Peter + Olivia/Lincoln, time slips and memory - "When Doves Cry" by Prince **

There are seconds where she knows where she is and then there are seconds displaced, where she's somewhere else and she feels only pressure on her lips. As soon as it starts it's over and she's alone in her apartment.

There are seconds when she's shouting with mad fury, anger raised from deep within her. She doesn't have any idea why, but it feels right and then the world normalises and she's in the lab, paused mid-sentence and she equally has no idea why.

A dove flies past, arcing in her line of sight and she feels a sense of deja vu. The lab is cold and Walter is babbling in the background unsatisfied with the results and the bird flopping on the floor; what was done doesn't last.

Time skips again and she's raging at Peter, his scowl disbelieving and he's moving out the door. Time skips again and her lips are on Lincoln's, the hint of a memory chased out of hiding, of yearning. And then she's back at the present, confused, and they're both watching her.

"Something is very wrong."

She isn't sure she trusts everything to unfold as she saw it, but she isn't sure what to be sure of anymore. All she knows is she wants to get to the bottom of the mystery and though she wants to know how it comes to be she fears the future inexplicably. And the edge of something new-no, _old, rediscovered-_tears at her. As if she's forgotten a whole life that she may have lived, of what would make her who she is if she were a little different, and it doesn't seem like it's one she's yet to experience. The other her she gave up is no longer a theoretical memory. The glimpses are merely a catalyst, a foretelling of what the memories will do but Olivia was never good at waiting for answers.

"Tell me what I'm missing."


	10. Chapter 10: Past Tense

**10. Past Tense – S4 Lincoln - "Asleep In The Back" by Elbow**

He wants to ask so many questions.

If she remembers the time they drove to Minnesota or the case with the polydactyl assassin. Sometimes he even wants to confront her with the things about him that he isn't sure she knows, or wants to know, anymore - like _do you know why I'm here_ or _do you know why I stayed_.

She doesn't ask any questions of him.

He'd belonged.

But Lincoln's quiet, considerate and accepts the evidence given for how it is her doing, that she's correcting some wrong to the timeline in a way that only Olivia will experience. Something she shares with Peter. Another thing to bring them closer.

He wants to ask _are you happy_ but he knows the answer already. She _smiles_. She looks at Peter like he's everything right in the world. She needs that, so Lincoln steps back, tries to find a new place for himself on the team and in her life.

He doesn't bank on how he's not just displaced, he's wiped out completely - a blank entry against his face in her memory, with no more meaning attached except someone she once trusted, a partner in technicality. Peter takes that place too and Lincoln wonders if things might've been different if he'd tried harder, fought for the woman who he'd known.

He'd told himself not to rush her, or himself for that matter, that they had time to get to know each other. The universe had made that into an inadvertent lie, it seems. Now she doesn't want to know and isn't who he knew, and he has to learn to be okay with it because it is what it is, what she chose. It's not okay though, not when it's so fresh, but he'll make it so, somehow. He has to find that feeling again, somewhere.


End file.
